Last weekend I had a super busy Friday- I had meetings until 6PM, then I had to fetch groceries so I could feed my family and my sister’s family- who was staying over for the weekend.

Enter Instacart. A few weeks back, I saw the poster above at the local Aldi and made a mental note (actually an Evernote) to try it out next time I was ready for an Aldi run. Our Aldi is about 5 miles away from our house, so we only hit it once a month when we are in that area of town – But the trip is worth it every time. Aldi has prices that beat Costco on many items.

So Friday was the day. Test drive the combination of the savings of Aldi with the convenience of Instacart – a perfect match.

I just got a Kindle Fire (5th Gen) for Christmas – So far I like it a lot. I wanted a cheap tablet to use as a web browser and book reader, with occasional email or video watching. After seeing how easy it is to crack the screen on my Wife’s iPad mimi (and how expensive the screen is to replace) I opted for the Kindle Fire 5.

I was perfectly ready to accept being bombarded with advertisements on the Fire 5, as Amazon has heavily subsidized the $100+ manufacturing cost of the $34 sales price on my Kindle Fire 5, knowing that I will be a captive, revenue-generating member of the Amazon and Amazon Prime ecosystem if I frequently use the Fire 5.

What I was NOT ready for was how painful it is to download free eBooks from Feedbooks.com or Gutenberg.org. There’s some nasty writeups on the Gutenberg webpage about the stinginess of the Amazon Fire- Gutenberg’s website all-out recommends you get a Nexus 7 Tablet as the alternative free e-book reader and stay away from the Kindle Fire 5.

Fortunately I figured out a free eBook download work-around that is not too annoying. Continue reading →